RF ALVAREZ - THE INVITATION

The Invitation gives the viewer insight in the queer lived experience of the Texas and American landscapes of Alvarez's origins. The grandson of a cowboy and the son of a Mexican immigrant, Alvarez’s practice explores heritages of gender expectations and societal norms in relation to the queer body and its community. In this new series of figurative works, Alvarez invites us to reflect upon intimacy through his deeply personal portrayal of queer lives, experimenting with the use of material to convey layered meaning and nuance. Alvarez works in acrylic, building up from raw canvas, to create surfaces that are craggy, textured, and teeming with movement underneath compositions that are handled, by contrast, with delicacy. Alvarez describes the process as, “a physical manifestation of the experience of suppression and memory. These works are, in a way, an excavation.” Similarly, in his subject matter Alvarez chooses to focus his eye on moments of resilience,

friendship, and beauty – a contrast to an increasingly inhospitable environment. There is a sense that the figures he shows us are carving out their place in the chaos, in the same way he applies his paint. “Texas is currently at the forefront of civil right rollbacks in the United States, from abortion access to LGBTQ+ rights,” says Alvarez, “and as the landscape changes around me and the community I belong to, I find myself asking a simple question: I am from here, but how do I continue to thrive here?” The answer Alvarez seems to be putting forward is: together. His figures are shown confident, enjoying the moment, and – perhaps more importantly – a part of a community. “My work deals with impermanence, indulgence and belonging,” says Alvarez, “three interconnected pillars of the of the queer experience. I create images of a world where things are beautiful, temporary, unfurled, and tender.

And I hope, in the end, these moments come together to paint a portrait of queer resilience and joy.”Looking at The Invitation, we are confronted by the gaze of a woman at the head of a table, offering us a glass of wine. Alvarez articulates bottles of wine in an eye-catching acidic jewel-tone green, and crisp glassware that defies the craggy surface of the painting. Based on the parable of Circe from The Odyssey, in which Odysseus’s rowdy sailors are invited by the goddess to drink from her enchanted wine and thus become the “true version of themselves” (they are turned into pigs), this composition invites the viewer to do the same. Alvarez, who appears the lower right-hand corner of the work, is telling us: central to becoming who you are, queer or not, is the community you surround yourself with. Come into this safe space, carved into the chaos, and be your true self.